Being Popular Versus Being Unique

[DaFool]

I think both approaches are necessary, but are each suited depending on the product.

Technical Products

I.e. Cars, Software, Visual Novel Engines. The Popular approach should work here.

Cars - When Ford and Mazda, Nissan and Renault, among others, decided to share global chassis platforms, I think it's a good thing. It saved time and money on research and development, concentrating on perfecting a single system instead of multiple ones. Since consumers only notice exterior effects, only then would customization occur according to the brand. The global platform could also be tweaked in terms of handling so that the product of each brand would still feel unique.

In other words, build for all -- then localize. I think I am starting to understand now Toyota decided to rehash the Belta / Yaris sedan for the next-generation Soluna Vios (A South-East Asian staple that originated in Thailand by Thai and Japanese engineers) rather than designing a fresh one from scratch... all it took was a little tuning up for the local conditions (stiffening the suspension for rougher roads, tuning the engine for better in-city fuel economy, tropicalizing the airconditioning, etc.)

It is still not fool-proof though. No doubt Microsoft may want to be the only operating system, and Chrysler and Mercedes had to divorce (after Chrysler increased its build quality and Mercedes in turn took a hit on it).

But I think this really saves effort especially for high-volume products where you really need the economies of scale in manufacturing.

It also works for visual novel engines, Ren'Py having come out as the winner for English-speaking users... it makes sense to keep on improving on it (even letting it have features that encroach upon Blade and Onscripter territory) rather than having too many choices in a community that is still too small.

Artistic Products

I.e. Food, Theater / Film / TV, individual Visual Novels themselves. The unique approach should be applied.

The one-size-fits-all approach won't work here. I eat convenience store food and fast food all the time and believe me I hate it but I have no other choice since I do not have enough time (I end up just eating salad shakers in a futile attempt to keep a balanced diet). For entertainment as well, once we enjoyed an idea, we would want fresh ideas also.

But wait a minute... this isn't exactly a pure generalization. Because there are certain archetypal stories which every generation enjoys no matter how many incarnations they have... as long as each retelling is unique enough. I guess it's like the shared car chassis after all. I admit I cannot really come up with a truly original concept, having to borrow from archetypes in literature, fairy tales, and anime.

Okay, so some works will prove popular... but I think it has more to do with marketing and timing. (I.e. during the Cold War, musicals were the 'in' thing as a light escape from the heavy threat).

But I think everyone more or less agrees that we should try to be as unique as possible without betraying a "trying too hard" feel (i.e. a lot of independent films give this "trying too hard, to show off" just like the mainstream tries to boost everything with a bigger budget).

And whether the approach is the popular or unique approach, the product deserves a world audience. Once the internet enabled me to see things beyond my immediate residence, my mind was opened, and I am no longer content with local information. There's no turning back.

[mikey]

I'll just put one thought into this... sharing platforms DOES feel samey - it simply does. I played SiN Emergence and it felt completely like Half-Life 2. It didn't have the spark that set the original SiN apart from other identikit Quake-2-engined games, and so it felt like a variation. And such is also the case with Ren'Py games - most of them will have this ren'py-ness. Not that it would matter. But it still can be felt. If there's too much of it, it may also work against the uniqueness of the game. Now sure it makes sense logically to have one (or few) engines... but that can end like cars - shared platforms and the most idiotic invention of design ever - corporate styling (that's when all cars of one maker have the same features so that you can identify them as such) - mean that no car feels unique, and all of them feel quite the same. But then, that depends on what you want from your car and whether you are a fan of the maker, or only the specific model.

[Jake]

But wait a minute... this isn't exactly a pure generalization. Because there are certain archetypal stories which every generation enjoys no matter how many incarnations they have... as long as each retelling is unique enough. I guess it's like the shared car chassis after all. I admit I cannot really come up with a truly original concept, having to borrow from archetypes in literature, fairy tales, and anime.

Hmm. Realistically, I think it's unfair to suggest that telling stories with the same archetypes as other stories is the same as cars sharing a chassis; saying that two redemption plots with different heroes, different scenes and different motives are similar is really more like saying that two cars are similar, because they both have an engine and four wheels and a steering wheel and all that. The redemption plot is still different to the boy-meets-girl romance, even though they both serve the same fundamental entertainment purpose - in the same way that the car is still different to the motorbike, even though they're both for getting you from A to B.

Sure, occasionally we get a story that comes out of nowhere and doesn't bear any immediately obvious relation to existing stories, appears 'original' and 'unique' and all that - and occasionally some loon decides that people would be much better off getting from A to B on a gyro-stablised platform set between two parallel wheels, and that seems original as well. The segway is still based on existing technology, sure - and (say) Memento is still fundamentally a recognisable plot when you strip away all the gimmicks and concentrate on what actually happens - but that doesn't mean that there's not an element of creativity in the way either thing is assembled.

(On the other hand, there are stories which are literally just other stories with a different name for the protagonist, and those are probably fairly well compared to chassis-sharing in the automotive industry.)

To drag the metaphor out further than it really should have been stretched, you have to bear in mind that there are certain elements which are fundamental to the idea of a story, and without them it's not worthy of that name - adhering to a form is not copying or derivative, it's just - well, adhering to a form. If you don't have some change in state from one end to the other, it probably isn't a story; if you don't have some conflict, on some level, it probably isn't a story. A slice-of-life vignette in which nothing happens and nothing changes is cute, in the same way that a sit-in 1:1 Cadillac model which doesn't go anywhere is nice to look at and sit in, bit it's not a story and the Cadillac model isn't a car.

(Also, it's beside the point, but... all of your 'i.e.'s should have been 'e.g.'s.)

I'll just put one thought into this... sharing platforms DOES feel samey - it simply does. I played SiN Emergence and it felt completely like Half-Life 2. It didn't have the spark that set the original SiN apart from other identikit Quake-2-engined games, and so it felt like a variation.

It usually does, sure - but it doesn't have to. Equally, as you note, SiN felt quite different from most Q2-engine games, and Half-Life itself was based on the Quake engine, but I know several people who just didn't believe that at the time because it was so different. And really, O3 and Magical Boutique feel pretty different, despite sharing the same engine, because they've been similarly customised. Certainly while there are a lot of Ren'Py games that do feel similar in that respect, if I'd been given Magical Boutique and O3 and eight other games each using a different bespoke VN engine, I doubt I'd be able to immediately work out it was those two which shared an engine.

That said, I guess I wouldn't like to encourage people to spend time specifically making their games different from other Ren'Py games when they could be spending that time making their games have better stories or art - it's only an important thing to my mind if your story really is so drastically different from everything else Ren'Py-associated that making that connection actually lessens the impact of your story, and I'm not sure I can think of a way that could really happen.

On the other hand, now you've got me thinking about how interesting a NaNo-type project where everyone starts with the same fixed media assets and an otherwise free reign would be...

[PyTom]

Of course, there's a lot of advantage to games being the same, at least when it comes to user interface. Having a consistent user interface means that users are able to load, save, etc. with a minimum of hassle, and using the experience that they know. I think the game menu should generally not be an area for maker expression... since if the user is spending non-trivial amounts of time in the menu, something's wrong with the game.

[mikey]

Yes, there's also the other side - indeed a bit of customization (often not nearly as big as Magbou or O3) and the untrained eye will not notice. My last three games I used a minimalistic layout that PyTom has made for us and it's great - I like the center-positioned subtitles (booh text windows at the bottom) and the simplicity and 9 save slots - it's just perfect! And I found it feels unique and really fitting to our games - and I intend to use this "ATP" layout in the future as well.

And indeed, advantage ^_^... with so many Ren'Py games I found myself switching to fullscreen by pressing "F" in other games I play as well Which of course did not work, as Alt+Enter is the more common shortcut. But "F" is much better

[DaFool]

Um, mikey... having a consistent "ATP Layout" for all ATP games is like the dreaded corporate design philosophy (like the Audi grille, the Ford 3-bar grille, and the crappiest of them all -- Boulay's Mitsubishi grilles which thank goodness they finally chucked), ya know?

Well, anyway, I have done some 'platform-sharing' methods already (palette-switching technique, BG-zooming technique), and the response wasn't negative -- I mean they did their job as well as saving me a lot of [artistic] effort and time, the idea of a consistent layout for your games is a good idea, but only if you maintain a certain writing style or flavor.

I mean, if you ever do decide to make a mecha hybrid VN-RTS (Well, you never know ), I'm pretty sure you wouldn't use the ATP layout there.

I have another idea that goes along the lines of platform sharing... reusing your characters in subsequent projects, especially if they were your original characters to begin with. Forget cameos... I'm talking about total reusing. If one manages to pull it off with consistent personality and characterization, it will serve to further strengthen that gamemaker's "brand". A lot of branding is in the characters, see the example of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Our characters can't become iconic like them, but perhaps they might approach the level of, let's say, Saber from F/SN or Asuka Langley from Eva.

I think this will work for me since the stories I write are more about plot or issues and less about character studies. That means once I have fleshed out a character, if he/she fits another role in another story, then why not? The only thing needed is a change of wardrobe. Imagine the possibilities... I can have my own Nanoha get her own spin-off series regardless of the status of Triangle Hearts where she was just a minor character in... see my example?

That being said, I think I just might make Jakob star in my next yaruge game. Then have a character in that game (the most popular / appealing according to player response) then star in the next game (GFA), and so on and so forth. Imagine the logistics savings from reusing characters... like actors, the mere fact that you've worked with them before means that working with them again would become second nature.

[mikey]

Um, mikey... having a consistent "ATP Layout" for all ATP games is like the dreaded corporate design philosophy, ya know?

Hey look! There's a plane outside the window! And what's the deal with telemarketers anyway, this really ticks me off sometimes... did I mention my cousin got herself a dog? And... oh, the time flies, gotta go!!

As for the other thing, shared characters, it's a way of working, yes. But nothing for me, I don't like to recycle things, even should they become popular... you know you have a story and you tell it... and then sometimes people will say that the characters have their own will or something - but usually it's just riding the wave of popularity and not needing to invent new things since the success is more likely and easier to achieve with something that is already established - so I tend to look a bit sideways at such projects. It's not that I hate them, but I respect those who let go. In this respect, say you have a game where your main character dies... but he is so popular, and then you make a prequel... isn't that actually the resurrection? It's technically a prequel, but game-wise a sequel. Or then you have something like a fantasy world where evrything is possible... I mean can Voldemort ever die for good? There is always some way of bringing people back... and that's why I like game makers who can draw a line.

[Tayruh]

I think the game menu should generally not be an area for maker expression... since if the user is spending non-trivial amounts of time in the menu, something's wrong with the game.

I think it all depends on the game. If you're spending a large amount of time in the menu of Half Life, you're definitely doing something wrong.. but in an RPG or something? You definitely spend a decent amount of time in those. Some more than others. And I think that if Persona 3 had the same menu system as Final Fantasy XII, I'd be extremely annoyed. Yes, I know all that matters is the stories.. but cookie cutter-ing anything is bad.

And such is also the case with Ren'Py games - most of them will have this ren'py-ness. Not that it would matter. But it still can be felt.

I think the problem with this is that too many people stick to the ren'ai mold, which is quite tired and stale. Don't get me wrong, some of them are quite good.. but honestly, how many games can you play that star a young boy in school that finds himself liking too many of his classmates and has to make a choice between the girls? It feels like 90% of the commercial visual novels out there are like this, and we really don't need fan games to continue the trend. What I would love to see is more games like The Noose breaking the mold.

It's not just visual novels that are being unoriginal lately, so don't think that I'm hating on that genre in particular. Console RPGs (or rather JRPGs) are being extremely cookie cutter lately. What I wouldn't give to play an RPG with a main character over the age of 16. FPS's are just as bad too, which like 90% of them wanting to be Halo or some WWII game.

Seriously, the genre should never ever limit the story you want to tell or for god's sake the menu design. ^^; If anything, us who are creating freeware games because we want to shouldn't be compelled to shovel out an inferior version of the same exact stories that we pay $60 for. We don't have to worry about budgets or whether it sells well. If we wanted to visual novel about an old man escaping from his nursing home to steal panties from high school girls during gym class and then selling them on ebay to pay for a house in Florida, we should do so. Be unique.

... and so ends my rant. >_> It started as a simple comment, I swear.

[Jake]

Seriously, the genre should never ever limit the story you want to tell or for god's sake the menu design. ^^;

Really, I disagree. Sure, if you have a strong high-fantasy story to tell you shouldn't decide you're going to switch the gritty antihero for a whiter-than-white pure-of-heart knight-in-shining-armour type just because previous JRPGs have all had 'nice' main characters and you don't want to defy genre trends, but equally if you have a strong high-fantasy story to tell then a racing game is totally the wrong genre of game to tell it in. It just doesn't work.

Basically, I guess there are some things about a genre - the pure-of-heart FF protagonist, the conflicted-hero in mecha games, the all-destroying malevolent enemy in 2D shooters - which are trends of their genres which aren't necessary at all, and sure - it would be bad to constrain your story just because it wasn't the same as other successful titles in the same genre. On the other hand, there are some other things about a genre - the military violence-solves-your-problems attitude of shooters, the big bad guy at the climax of a JPRG - which are conventions of their genres for a very good reason: the game feels empty or wrong without them. If you're trying to write a game where you're crowbarring in elements that defy strong genre conventions, then you're probably choosing the wrong type of game for your story.

Exceptions like Shoot the Bullet excluded.

[Tayruh]

Sure, if you have a strong high-fantasy story to tell you shouldn't decide you're going to switch the gritty antihero for a whiter-than-white pure-of-heart knight-in-shining-armour type just because previous JRPGs have all had 'nice' main characters and you don't want to defy genre trends, but equally if you have a strong high-fantasy story to tell then a racing game is totally the wrong genre of game to tell it in. It just doesn't work.

See.. I don't really agree with that either. If you have a high-fantasy story and can incorporate it into a racing game so that it fits in well with the game mechanics, you should do it. I'm not saying you should completely break the story by racing your tricked out Mitsubishi Lancer to save the princess who is being held captive by the evil sorcerer Balgazar.. it still needs to be believable. But on the other hand, just because you have an RPG, your main character shouldn't have to be an angsty amnesiatic 16 year old with a huge sword who is destined to save the world alongside his female healer love interest, and every VN novel shouldn't revolve around a damn school.. I'm sorry, but I'm so sick of that trend..

As for some of my favorite genre mold breaking games (in regards to story telling), I really like Condemned for X-Box 360, which is a survival horror in first person, using your fists and melee items more often than shooting. Also Odin Sphere has an incredible RPG-caliber story for being an action game (with minor RPG elements). And of course there are the Nippon Ichi games like Disgaea which are all cute and silly, yet most other SRPGs are all about war and serious themes. I also really like every Shin Megami Tensei game for breaking the standard RPG cliches.

[Jake]

See.. I don't really agree with that either. If you have a high-fantasy story and can incorporate it into a racing game so that it fits in well with the game mechanics, you should do it.

Except High Fantasy fundamentally isn't about racing, or sport, or realistically anything which could be embodied by the Gran Turismo engine. You could make a High Fantasy beat-em-up, a High Fantasy third-person-action game, a High Fantasy city-building game, and fit a variety of stories into those games... but there's no real space for exposition in a racing game, and there's no real space for racing in the High Fantasy setting, so the two are really more or less incompatible. There would be nothing stopping you trying to make such a game, but it would likely be either a crappy story or a crappy racing game, and possibly a crappy both.

But on the other hand, just because you have an RPG, your main character shouldn't have to be an angsty amnesiatic 16 year old with a huge sword who is destined to save the world alongside his female healer love interest, and every VN novel shouldn't revolve around a damn school.. I'm sorry, but I'm so sick of that trend..

Sure, and I agree completely. This is why I was careful to separate 'trends' (the angsty amnesiac) from 'conventions' (the big boss battle at the climax of the JRPG). Trends are just fashions, they can be broken as much as you like; conventions of the genre are conventions of the genre for a damn good reason - because that's what works for that genre, and that's what people expect. And I mean 'expect' in the "this game was crap because it was an X but it didn't have Y" sense, not the "this game was surprisingly fresh because I was expecting X and got Y instead" sense.

Seriously, think about it some more. Try and write a JRPG story which doesn't have a climatic boss battle in the last hour or so of the game, without that last hour feeling like a boring protracted coda. It just doesn't work - JRPGs are fundamentally fixed around combat, it's a genre convention, and players expect the game to rise up to a climax at the end of the story. If you want to write a game without a climatic battle, try making it a city-building game or a VN (character RPG/interactive fiction) or a point-and-click adventure or something, because those genres don't have the climatic-boss-battle convention.

As for some of my favorite genre mold breaking games (in regards to story telling), I really like Condemned for X-Box 360, which is a survival horror in first person, using your fists and melee items more often than shooting. Also Odin Sphere has an incredible RPG-caliber story for being an action game (with minor RPG elements). And of course there are the Nippon Ichi games like Disgaea which are all cute and silly, yet most other SRPGs are all about war and serious themes.

I can't speak for Shin Megami Tensei, having not seen any of it, but none of those others to my knowledge are 'mould breaking': none of them defy the conventions of their genre, only the trends. Survival Horror games don't have to be third-person, they have to be creepy and tense and function by placing the player in a seemingly untenable situation and challenging them to get out and by restricting the availability of game information. There is nothing in the definition of 'action game' which says it can't have a story, the Zelda series has been managing it for years. Hell, a decade ago we had Another World and Flashback and so on. Sure, Disgaea is cute and silly, but your characters still level up with experience, you still progress through increasingly-difficult battles punctuated by stage-end boss battles, the game is still, fundamentally, about combat.

If you wanted to make an SRPG that broke the mould, you would need to get rid of or radically alter one of these aspects. However, there's a strong chance of total failure - a large number of the games which just don't work are failed attempts to break a mould - and if you do succeed you more than likely haven't really ended up with an SRPG anymore, you've come up with an entirely new genre that didn't previously exist.

[papillon]

Except High Fantasy fundamentally isn't about racing, or sport, or realistically anything which could be embodied by the Gran Turismo engine. You could make a High Fantasy beat-em-up, a High Fantasy third-person-action game, a High Fantasy city-building game, and fit a variety of stories into those games... but there's no real space for exposition in a racing game, and there's no real space for racing in the High Fantasy setting, so the two are really more or less incompatible. There would be nothing stopping you trying to make such a game, but it would likely be either a crappy story or a crappy racing game, and possibly a crappy both.

While doing it for the sake of doing it would be silly, if you had a really GOOD idea it could still be done.

Did you see the movie A Knight's Tale? It's about a commoner working his way through the jousting circuit. The plot advances between the 'sport' segments. And includes a romance - even quite easily two different girls to choose between if you were adapting it for a dating game

You could take that movie's general plot structure, turn the 'jousting' competition into 'dragon racing' or something a little more high-fantasy than the simple medieval joust, and voila. You have a racing game fantasy romance story.

[monele]

I'll have to agree mostly with Tayruh here ^^. I also want to see more variations and original topics and concepts... be it in VNs or other things. And when I say VN, I include hybrids .
Basically, if you want to tell a story that is deemed "classic", don't change just because... keep at it. We need classics too .
But still, if more people could try new things, it'd be cool ^^. Don't be scared that your concept does not fit in current categories... I'm not saying you should try and mix everything possible as it probably won't work well, but hey... a mix of two or three genres might be fun.

Except High Fantasy fundamentally isn't about racing, or sport, or realistically anything which could be embodied by the Gran Turismo engine.

What about horse races?... Gryphon races?... Titan races? Does racing have to be about cars...?
(*notes papillon comment is pretty much what I meant ^^*)

but there's no real space for exposition in a racing game

Bah... Why not? There *are* stories surrounding races I think.

and if you do succeed you more than likely haven't really ended up with an SRPG anymore, you've come up with an entirely new genre that didn't previously exist.

That's actually part of what I'd want :3...

[mikey]

I think the problem with this is that too many people stick to the ren'ai mold, which is quite tired and stale. Don't get me wrong, some of them are quite good.. but honestly, how many games can you play that star a young boy in school that finds himself liking too many of his classmates and has to make a choice between the girls? It feels like 90% of the commercial visual novels out there are like this, and we really don't need fan games to continue the trend. What I would love to see is more games like The Noose breaking the mold.

This bit, with the following:

Try and write a JRPG story which doesn't have a climatic boss battle in the last hour or so of the game, without that last hour feeling like a boring protracted coda. It just doesn't work - JRPGs are fundamentally fixed around combat, it's a genre convention, and players expect the game to rise up to a climax at the end of the story.

I'd continue this thought - since I can see a difference between games that make no effort to be unique among their kind and just want the proven formula done in a different color and that's it - but for as for thinking that all games are like this, I'd not forget the human factor - playing too many VNs in succession may wear you down - you start generalizing even those things that are quite unique, indeed it's not the GAME that is tired, but the PLAYER.

I know you (Tayruh) didn't speak of the freeware VNs, but just to voice the opinion - I really don't believe that in freeware OELVNs (at the very least the completed ones) there is a tendency to make cliched works - sure, there are several games with the classic formula - but they are definitely not in any way dominating - not even the romantic ones. If you look closer, you find a lot of different games, Winter Shard, Nettestadt Troll, Fade, Go! Magical Boy and let's be patriotic - Embraced By Green. Their essences are really completely different.

[Jake]

but there's no real space for exposition in a racing game

Bah... Why not? There *are* stories surrounding races I think.

This is the real point - it's not that there's no room for stories with racing in (and yeah, you can shoehorn racing into a high fantasy setting, but it's arguably really no longer a high fantasy story if it's about racing, because high fantasy stories are about typically-epic quests) it's that the racing game genre doesn't really have space for telling them. It's not that you can't wrap a cutscene around the beginning and the end of each race, it's that there's nothing in the widest definition of the 'racing game' genre which allows for the player to make storyline choices or really to vary the gameplay elements that much by the story; they can't be involved in the story, only an observer to it. So realistically, any attempt to blend storytelling of any genre with racing games means you either end up with a disjoint game/story which happen at the same time but don't affect each other, or you have to blend your racing game with some other genre that actually involves storytelling and make a hybrid game. Which has its own dangers.

For a more obvious example - you could tell your high-fantasy story in a game of breakout if you have to, but nothing is going to really convince your players that bouncing a ball on a paddle is the same as battling through the evil sorceror's dark tower, the story accompanies rather than involves the game.

Fundamentally, a genre is a set of conventions that describe how a thing in that genre behaves. A murder-mystery novel without a murder or a mystery isn't a murder-mystery novel; a comedy without any jokes (and without everyone getting married at the end) isn't a comedy, and a JRPG that isn't combat-oriented with a boss battle at the end isn't really a JRPG, either. If you're choosing to make a game within a specific gameplay genre, then you've already made the decision to include certain elements and exclude others. To do otherwise is risky, and I don't mean risky in the 'might not sell/be popular' sense, I mean risky in the 'might not be fun' sense.

and if you do succeed you more than likely haven't really ended up with an SRPG anymore, you've come up with an entirely new genre that didn't previously exist.

That's actually part of what I'd want :3...

Well, me too, sometimes. There's nothing wrong with that - more genres would be great! - but it's a difficult thing to do, and it's an even harder thing to do well. The genres we have that exist at the moment exist for the reason that they work, and they work well, and they resonate with people. The 'racing game' genre contains all the conventions that people expect and want from a racing game, and none of the ones that they don't.

To refer back to the topic at hand, I'm not advocating playing to people's expectations in order to be popular - that's playing to the fashionable trends in a genre, the angsty amnesiac with the huge sword, just to get sales/downloads, and doesn't usually involve enough creativity to really be interesting. What I'm advocating is playing to people's expectation of a game's point - paying attention to the conventions which make certain types of game certain types of game, the things that make a racing game a racing game - because if you don't your game quite possibly won't be entertaining. Those forms exist for a reason, and violating them risks producing rubbish on the same order as the unwatchable pretentious artsy crap that film students make for the sole purpose of being different at the cost of being entertaining.